Enel was a big help for me when I got through the opening parts of the game for figuring out the synergies and stuff. He has a lot of guides for making some of the best Blades broken:
Keep in mind majority of the combat isn't fully open until a bit of the ways in the game so even if you watch a guide a lot of stuff will be slower/less fun until later when you have plenty of blades on each party member and such.
The rule of thumb is to use enough blades to have an answer for every combo, as someone else posted this chart earlier:
Time your arts with your combat hits like a rhythm game, unlock your affinities to give you more chaining potential, and use driver combos when you can. Break > Topple > Launch > Smash arts are indicated as such on every driver, and the AI in the game is pretty clever in how it prioritizes such.
Build your companions to benefit you the player and the AI will never fail. But if you don't keep in mind what the AI is doing you may screw yourself over. For example if you give Nia a healer role but give her a break art, she may not switch blades for elementals or heal the group when she should because the AI tries to prioritize setting up driver combos for you and the team.
It's a lot of trial and error and figuring out what the AI is trying to do, but later when the affinity is unlocked and you get more blades the AI can ALMOST fight on its own and is there to supplement you the player, so consider it more like controlling three characters at once versus being one party member of three. The AI in the game is insanely smart in most regards and I love talking about the fight system so if you have any specific questions feel free to hit me up. I can't hit the numbers Enel can consistently but I love the game.
But like I said unfortunately the battle system and its amazingness takes a while to get to, because at the beginning you'll be forced to take it slow. In the opening hours I recommend moving the analog stick on your character to slightly move them after the first hit in their autoattack, restarting their auto attack chain. This lets you build up arts super fast by sort of nudging it and making the combo quickly repeat itself. It's a good way to generate arts in the opening hours before you get further in the game.
ALSO don't underestimate generic blades. They try to get you with the gacha system and rare blade stuff but trust me the right driver blade combos can make all the difference.
Last thing before I stop rambling is make sure to look at arts for each blade on each driver. One character might have different movesets for the same blade on another character, and all blades have 4 arts per character, meaning that one is always left off your default combo, and it's sometimes a really good attack. Keep an eye on what each is meant to do and what they can do for your builds.
For example Nia is good with Bitballs, ether cannons, and glaives because they all have healing skills, while the same blade would give Rex subpar attacks. Shield Hammers and Katanas are good for tanking usually, and spears and axes are good for damage. Each driver connect to each of these weapon types differently. It's really fleshed out.
I have a guide to making Xenoblade 2 enjoyable.
It's called... play something else.
Great contribution, pat yourself on the back.
https://twitter.com/ArchTalko/status/940732602490720256 this was a thing I used a lot until I memorized it after using it so much.
As for structurally understanding xenoblade 2 it's actually not that hard the ingame tutorials are just absolute garbage and overcomplicate the system with bad explanations.
I'm trying to summarize from memory so people feel free to correct me if I say something wrong but in essence,
you have 2 attack paths to go down. One are elemental combos. The twitter thing I linked states how the chains work but essentially every elemental part of a combo I think puts down an elemental debuff on the enemy that can be cashed in for extra dmg during I believe it was called chain link? The thing were you basically break these orbs with the corresponding element.
The other part was driver combos I think those mostly afflict short disables on enemies and honestly I was mostly using it to get more loot because the last part of a driver combo has like a pinhata effect.
I feel like Chain attack spam isn't as relevant in the beginning because especially if you adjust enemy hp values nothing really lives long enough for chain attacks aside from bosses, and the first half of the game most players aren't grinding for blades like my dumb ass did so they might not have the elemental spread they need for breaking orbs.
Not to mention you only have Tora and Poppi as your tank at first/for the first parts of the game leaving only two characters with full customization which limits your options until you get party members4 and 5.
